Chapter Summaries:
Chapter 9:
In this chapter, Huck and Jim stay living by themselves on the island. They decide to find a shelter for themselves in case any unwanted people show up. They find a cave, where they take all of their things, and make a shelter in it. In a rain storm, an old shack floats down the flooded river. Naturally, Huck decides to inspect it. He and Jim find the body of a murdered man inside, and for Huck's protection, Jim doesn't let him look at the face.
Chapter 10:
In chapter 10, the theme of superstitions comes into play when Jim warns Huck that picking up a snake's skin is bad luck-something that Huck already did. Huck doesn't believe this, and as a joke, puts a dead rattlesnake by Jim when he falls asleep during the night. The bad luck comes, and Jim gets bitten by the snake's mate. His wound gets infected and swells up, fortunately getting better in a few days time. A day comes when Huck wants to go back into the town for any new information that has happened since their isolated time on the island. To disguise himself, he dresses up in a dress that was found in the shack with the dead man, and pretends to be a girl. He goes into the town and meets a lady, who is new to the town.
Chapter 11:
In this chapter, Huck tells the lady he meets, Mrs. Loftus, that his name is Sarah Williams, and finds out multiple points about his case back home. His father is suspected for Huck's murder and ran away, but Jim is also a suspect. He ran away on the same day that Huck died, which makes him a suspect as well. Both men are missing, and both have a cash reward for finding them. The lady also tells Huck that her husband is going to search Jackson's island that night, which is where Huck and Jim are living, since he saw smoke over the island. The lady starts to become suspicious of Huck, and gives him tests to see if he's actually a girl or not. She asks his name again, and has him kill a rat, which he is talented at, which would be surprising for a girl. She asks him to say who he really is, promising not to tell anyone, and Huck tells her he's George Peters, a runaway apprentice. When Huck gets back to Jackson's island, he sets a fire on the other side of the island to set the Lady's husband on the wrong track.
Discussion Questions:
How does Huck's view of superstition evolve over the course of Chapter 10?
Huck views of superstition are confirmed through the events in Chapter 10. First, Huck thinks about the old murdered man they found in the washed up shack, and Jim warns him that to think about dead people is bad luck. Also, Jim explains that messing with a snake's skin, which Huck did, was also bad luck. To scare Jim, Huck placed the snake skin by his bed when he was sleeping, and as bad luck would have it, another snake comes and bites Jim in his sleep. All these events leading up to the bad luck of Jim getting bit confirms the signs of bad luck that Huck took.
How does Huck's dressing up as a girl help to establish his independence as a character?
Huck dresses up as girl to get information from the town that he's missed over the time he had been in hiding. This shows his independence by seeing that he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants, and using his mind to get that. He wants information, and he will take any steps necessary to get that. In this case, he dresses up as a girl. He's not worried about being judged, or getting caught by anyone. It's just using his smart mind and skill to get what he wants.
Hypothesize why the reward for Pap is only $200 and the reward for Jim is $300 given that Pap is suspected as Huck's killer
I think the reward for Pap is less than the reward for Jim because Jim is an escaped slave. He is not actually free. The slaves had no rights and were owned, and an escaped slave was a very unacceptable thing. Although Pap was suspected for killing Huck, in the time period, finding an escaped black man was more important than finding an escaped murderer. In the 1900's, the slaves were treated with even lower respect than criminals, making Pap's reward less than Jim's.
Reflections:
In these chapters, we again see Huck's creative imagination go to work. He uses his idea to convince people he sees that he's a girl. In return, he gets information about his family and about Jim. Huck's large imagination worked on his family when he staged his death, and again works when he dresses as a girl. I think that all of his role playing games with Tom Sawyer helped to get the ideas he had for pretending he was someone else, or to set up an event that didn't happen.